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Saturday 03/12/11

7:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Hot Shots (1956 USA): You know there’s something wrong with the Bowery Boys series when the plot revolves around Sach’s car being stolen. Sach owns a car? Since when? And since when is he capable of driving? Stanley Clements returns as straight man Duke, whilst sci-fi regular Robert Shayne (The Giant Claw, Teenage Cave Man) shows up as a television producer.

10:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
City Streets (1931 USA): Gary Cooper stars as a carny turned wise guy in this forgotten, unavailable on home video should-be-classic directed by the great Rouben Mamoulian. Based on a story by Dashiell Hammett, the film features Coop as The Kid, operator of a sideshow shooting gallery. Gal pal Nan (Sylvia Sidney) urges him to join the mob so he can earn some easy money, but The Kid isn't interested — even though Nan's father (Guy Kibbee, playing against type brilliantly) is a big-time hood who could make life easy for him. When Nan is arrested whilst trying to dispose of a murder weapon, however, The Kid has second thoughts: she'll need a lot of money to pay for an expensive lawyer. What, Dad won't pony up for his own child? The Kid takes the bait, only to find out that Nan liked him better when he was straight. City Streets is visually stunning from start to finish thanks to cinematographer Lee Garmes, and compares favorably to Josef von Sternberg's silent classic Underworld (1927). Mamoulian's next film was the since unsurpassed Fredric March version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but this film is even better.

Sunday 03/13/11

11:30 PM Encore Dramatic Stories
I Shot Andy Warhol (1996 USA): Lili Taylor is outstanding as would-be Warhol assassin Valerie Solanas in this excellent drama set during the heady revolutionary days of 1968. In real life, Solanas was a radical feminist who penned the Scum (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto, which modestly proposed the elimination of the male gender. Solanas also wrote a play delightfully entitled Up Your Ass, which she gave to Warhol in hopes that he would help her produce it. Unfortunately, Andy lost the script, causing Valerie in turn to lose her cool and shoot him. After a three-year stint in Bellevue, Solanas died in poverty in 1988 in a San Francisco flophouse — ironically, Up Your Ass was later re-discovered and produced only blocks from her Tenderloin death bed. As for the film, it marked the directorial debut of Mary Harron, whose only other feature-length theatrical releases to date — American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page — are also very, very good. Too bad she doesn’t direct more frequently, but at least we have The Moth Diaries to look forward to later this year.

Monday 03/14/11

12:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Story of Mankind (1957 USA): One of the most ridiculous films ever made — and I know that’s saying a lot — The Story of Mankind returns to television this morning after a lengthy absence. A clearly exhausted and bewildered Ronald Colman stars as The Spirit of Man, a fellow assigned the difficult task of convincing God — in a courtroom in the clouds, no less — that Planet Earth is worth saving from the horrors of the recently developed "Super H Bomb." His opponent is Old Scratch himself (Vincent Price), who of course argues the opposite and believes mankind should be hoist on its own petard. The two take a trip though history to examine the pros and cons, allowing director Irwin Allen (yeah, the guy behind Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel) to shoehorn in dozens of embarrassing celebrity cameos. Want to see Dennis Hopper as Napoleon? Peter Lorre as Nero? Harpo Marx as Sir Isaac Newton? Virginia Mayo as Cleopatra? They’re all here and much, much more. It’s awful, but car crash awful — you’ll be rubbernecking the whole way.

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